Fasting is extremely beneficial for your physical and
spiritual well-being. Unfortunately, the biased media has dubbed it as a Muslim
religious ritual (referring to Ramadan) only thus taking away all the health benefits your body can
derive from it. Fasting is good for the body and the soul. It’s not only
materially beneficial, it’s also a godly act. It’s good for the entire mankind
though it’s now obligatory for Muslims only. But all scriptures show that all
messengers or prophets of God (like Abraham, Moses, Jesus, etc.) used to fast.
And there’s a strong possibility that their followers did the same. The Quran
says that fasting was as well obligatory for all other nations as it is
obligatory for Muslims. Here's a quote from the Bible:

‘Fasting shifts
stem cells from a dormant

state to a
state of self-renewal. It triggers

stem cell based
regeneration of an organ

or system.’ –
Study

BUKHARI:

According to the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.),
recorded by Bukhari, Abdullah bin Amr narrated:

“Allah's Apostle was informed that I had taken an oath to
fast daily and to pray (every night) all the night throughout my life. So, Allah's
Apostle came to me and asked whether it was true. I replied, "Let my
parents be sacrificed for you! Yes, I said so."

The Prophet said, "You cannot do that. So, fast for few
days and give it up for few days, pray and sleep. Fast three days a month as the
reward of good deeds is multiplied ten times and that will be equal to one
month of fasting."

I replied, "I can do better than that."

The Prophet said to me, "Fast one day and give up fasting for
a day (fasting on alternate days) and that is the fasting of Prophet
David and that is the best fasting."

I said, "I have the power to fast better (more) than
that."

The Prophet said, "There is no
better fasting than that."

(Bukhari, Book 31, Hadith No. 197)

In some narrations of Ahadith, it is said that the Prophet
(s.a.w.) himself used to fast twice a week (every Monday and Thursday); while
in others it is said that he used to fast three days (13th, 14th
and 15th) of every month. Yet there are other narrations that he
used to fast Mondays and Thursdays, plus three days (13th, 14th
& 15th) every month.

I won’t say that there are contradictions in such Ahadith
(although there is a possibility) but, in any case, all the above narrations
prove the point that I want to emphasize – fasting. This kind of fasting is
called ‘intermittent fasting’ (i.e., not continuous).

‘Fasting twice
a week could significantly

lower the risk
of developing both

Parkinson’s and
Alzheimer’s disease.’

--
Neuroscientists

What Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) recommended 14 centuries ago,
is being discovered and researched by modern world today. Modern medical science has come up
with the proof that fasting, especially intermittent fasting, works miracles on
your body, especially the brains. But the money-making Big Pharma is not
interested in supporting and researching such a study. They would lose most of
their clients. They want people to stay sick and suffer from all kinds of
illnesses so that they could make money by selling drugs in the name of
treatment. This is a trillion-dollar business.

When health becomes a business, the only consideration is to
boost the profits. If people are healthy, doctors and Big Pharma would not make
big money. Simple!

“Intermittent fasting enhances the ability

of nerve cells to repair DNA.” – Study

Fasting is the latest trend, the new craze! Many doctors and scientists are recommending intermittent fasting for its tremendous health benefits - spiritual benefits are a bonus! There are some biased and ignorant doctors too who think that 'fasting' is something 'Islamic' and they cannot recommend it. Fasting reminds them of Ramadan. So they use the term 'starving', short-term starving or intermittent starving. They don't know that 'starving' is generally forced and has a negative connotation. On the contrary, 'fasting' is voluntary and has a positive connotation. Most educated people acknowledge the health benefits of fasting, whether intermittent or long term. Here are some of them:

Fasting: Your
project for 2016!

You can start
your fasting campaign

with
‘intermittent fasting’ (twice a

week) and then
join your Muslim

friends during
Ramadan for complete

physical and
spiritual overhauling.

From: CollectiveEvolution

Following are excerpts from an article by Arjun Walia,
published December 11, 2015, by Collective Evolution:

Neuroscientist Shows

What Fasting Does To
Your Brain &

Why Big Pharma Won’t
Study It

Below is a TEDx talk given by Mark Mattson, the current
Chief of the Laboratory of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging. He
is also a professor of Neuroscience at The Johns Hopkins University, and one of
the foremost researchers in the area of cellular and molecular mechanisms
underlying multiple neurodegenerative disorders, like Parkinson’s and
Alzheimer’s disease.

I chose to include ‘Big Pharma’ in the title because that’s
exactly what it is. There have been countless examples of the manipulation of
published research at the hands of pharmaceutical companies in recent years.

This is why Harvard Professor of Medicine
Arnold Symour Relman told the world that the medical profession has been
bought by the pharmaceutical industry.

It’s why Dr. Richard Horton, Editor in Chief
of The Lancet, recently stated that much of the scientific literature
published today is simply untrue.

It’s why Dr. Marcia Angell, former Editor in
Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, said that the
“pharmaceutical industry likes to depict itself as a research-based industry,
as the source of innovative drugs. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

And it’s why John Ioannidis, an epidemiologist
at the Stanford University School of Medicine, published an article titled “Why
Most Published Research Findings Are False” which subsequently
became the most widely accessed article in the history of the Public
Library of Science (PLoS).

I also chose to mention ‘Big Pharma’ because of Dr.
Mattson’s comments towards the end of the video:

“Why is it that the normal diet is three meals a day plus
snacks? It isn’t that it’s the healthiest eating pattern, now that’s my opinion
but I think there is a lot of evidence to support that. There are a lot of
pressures to have that eating pattern, there’s a lot of money involved. The
food industry — are they going to make money from skipping breakfast like I did
today? No, they’re going to lose money. If people fast, the
food industry loses money. What about the pharmaceutical industries?
What if people do some intermittent fasting, exercise periodically
and are very healthy, is the pharmaceutical industry going to make any money on
healthy people?”

Mark and his team have published several papers that discuss
how fasting twice a week could significantly lower the risk of developing both
Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.

“Dietary changes have long been known to have an effect on
the brain. Children who suffer from epileptic seizures have fewer of them when
placed on caloric restriction or fasts. It is believed that fasting helps
kick-start protective measures that help counteract the overexcited signals
that epileptic brains often exhibit. (Some children with epilepsy have also
benefited from a specific high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet.) Normal brains, when
overfed, can experience another kind of uncontrolled excitation, impairing the
brain’s function, Mattson and another researcher reported in January in the
journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience.”(source)

Basically, when you take a look at caloric restriction
studies, many of them show a prolonged lifespan as well as an increased
ability to fight chronic disease.

“Calorie restriction (CR) extends life span and retards
age-related chronic diseases in a variety of species, including rats, mice,
fish, flies, worms, and yeast. The mechanism or mechanisms through which this
occurs are unclear.”

Fasting does good things for the brain, and this is evident
by all of the beneficial neuro-chemical changes that happen in the brain when
we fast. It also improves cognitive function, increases neuro-trophic factors,
increases stress resistance, and reduces inflammation.

Fasting is a challenge to your brain, and your brain
responds to that challenge by adapting stress response pathways which help your
brain cope with stress and risk for disease. The same changes that occur in the
brain during fasting mimic the changes that occur with regular exercise. They both
increase the production of protein in the brain (neuro-trophic factors), which
in turn promotes the growth of neurons, the connection between neurons, and the
strength of synapses.

Fasting can also stimulate the production of new nerve cells
from stem cells in the hippocampus. He also mentions ketones (an energy source
for neurons), and how fasting stimulates the production of ketones and that it
may also increase the number of mitochondria in neurons. Fasting also increases
the number of mitochondria in nerve cells; this comes as a result of the
neurons adapting to the stress of fasting (by producing more mitochondria).

By increasing the number of mitochondria in the
neurons, the ability for nerons to form and maintain the connections between
each other also increases, thereby improving learning and memory ability.

He also goes into the evolutionary aspect of this theory –
how our ancestors adapted and were built for going long periods of time without
food.

A study published in the June 5 issue of Cell Stem
Cell by researchers from the University
of Southern California showed
that cycles of prolonged fasting protect against immune system damage and,
moreover, induce immune system regeneration. They concluded that fasting shifts
stem cells from a dormant state to a state of self-renewal. It triggers
stem cell based regeneration of an organ or system. (source)

Human clinical trials were conducted using patients who were
receiving chemotherapy. For long periods of time, patients did not eat, which
significantly lowered their white blood cell counts. In mice, fasting cycles
“flipped a regenerative switch, changing the signaling pathways for
hematopoietic stem cells, which are responsible for the generation of blood and
immune systems.”

This means that fasting kills off old and damaged immune
cells, and when the body rebounds it uses stem cells to create brand new,
completely healthy cells.

“We could not predict that prolonged fasting would have such
a remarkable effect in promoting stem cell-based regeneration of the heatopoietic
system. . . . When you starve, the system tries to save energy, and one of the
things it can do to save energy is to recycle a lot of the immune cells that
are not needed, especially those that may be damaged. What we started
noticing in both our human work and animal work is that the white blood cell
count goes down with prolonged fasting. Then when you re-feed, the blood cells
come back. ” – Valter Longo, corresponding author (source)

A scientific review of multiple scientific studies regarding
fasting was published in The American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition in 2007. It examined a multitude of both human and animal studies
and determined that fasting is an effective way to reduce the risk of
cardiovascular disease and cancer. It also showed significant potential in
treating diabetes. (source)

Before You Fast

Before you fast, make sure you do your research. Personally,
I’ve been fasting for years, so it is something that comes easy for me.

One recommended way of doing it — which was tested by
the BBC’s Michael Mosley in order to reverse his diabetes, high
cholesterol, and other problems that were associated with his obesity — is what
is known as the “5:2 Diet.” On the 5:2 plan, you cut your food down to
one-fourth of your normal daily calories on fasting days (about 600 calories
for men and about 500 for women), while consuming plenty of water and tea.
On the other five days of the week, you can eat normally.

Another way to do it, as mentioned above, is to restrict
your food intake between the hours of 11am and 7pm daily, while not eating
during the hours outside of that time.

Bottom line, how you think about your diet is, in my
opinion, one of the most, if not the most important part of staying healthy.
How you think about what you are putting in your body is important, and I
believe this will eventually be firmly established in the untainted, unbiased,
uninfluenced medical literature of the future.

I have been fasting regularly at least twice a week (Mondays
and Thursdays) for about 10 years now. I walk 5-6 kilometers at least
4-5 times a week. I am 70 years and feel great. I have not seen a doctor in
decades (except for some dental work and an operation of Hernia in 2012, or a
normal eye-test every two years). I don’t take medication. I drink a lot of
herbal, ginger, green, black and other Tea. I use dates, olive oil with a small
piece of whole-wheat bread, an apple, an orange and milk in my breakfast (of
course Tea too .. lol). I mostly avoid red meat and use a lot of fish and
turkey meat; sometimes chicken. For more than 20 years now, I have been eating
only twice a day – the breakfast and the main meal at sunset (Maghrib). I have
no physical/health problems! Alhamdo-lillah! (Thank God!). Now good luck to
you! God bless!

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QURAN RECITATION

Al-Quran

The Guiding Light

WELCOME HOME

Assalaam-o-alaikum!

We are glad to see you here. We can accompany you home. By joining us, you'll, Insha-Allah, prepare yourself mentally and spiritually for your onward journey on the road less traveled. We are heading for Home - the promised Home. Allah says:

M. Javed Naseem

M. Javed Naseem (Jay Max) is a well-known journalist and broadcaster from Lahore (Pakistan). He is the author of six books. He has worked as a reporter and then sub-editor for daily Nawa-i-Waqt, Lahore; as sub-editor with the Pakistan Times, Lahore; and as editor of the weekly Community News, New York, NY, among others.He was an international broadcaster for radio Deutsche Welle (The Voice of Germany), Cologne, Germany; news editor and newscaster for Third World Broadcasting TV in New York; was producer & director of ‘Mabuhay’, an English language TV show for the Filipino community in New York. He had been an announcer at Radio Pakistan, Lahore; and Punjabi newscaster for Pakistan Television, Lahore. Before entering the field of professional journalism, he was a Lecturer/Instructor at the Govt. Commercial Training Institute, Lahore. He knows English, French, German, Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, Persian and some Arabic. He writes for Islamic websites. He is a Pakistani-American and now lives in retirement in Morocco, North Africa.Publications: The Way (Sunnah) of The Prophet (s.a.w.); God's Prescription - Al-Quran; A Wake-up Call; You Are Special; Stories of Prophets.